COLUMBIA, S.C. — As the nation waits for the Supreme Court to decide whether same-sex marriages should be legal nationwide, another, more mundane front has opened in the wedding wars: the offices of the state and local officials who perform civil marriages and issue licenses.

Republican state legislators in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas have introduced bills this year that would prohibit state or local government employees from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, despite federal court rulings declaring bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional in those states and questions about the constitutionality of the proposed state laws. The bills would also strip the salaries of employees who issued the licenses.

A second South Carolina bill would give some government employees the ability to opt out of issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples if they objected on the basis of a “sincerely held religious belief.” In Utah, a bill would allow officials like judges, mayors and county clerks who solemnize marriages to opt out on religious grounds. In North Carolina, the president pro tempore of the State Senate, Phil Berger, a Republican, filed a similar bill Wednesday that would apply to “magistrates and registers of deeds.”

And in Alabama, a rift developed among probate judges who could not agree on whether a federal judge’s ruling Friday, which called the state’s current bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, meant that they actually had to begin issuing licenses.

In a letter Tuesday that cited Thomas Jefferson and the Bible, the chief justice of the State Supreme Court, Roy S. Moore, said he intended to continue recognizing Alabama’s same-sex marriage ban, in part because “nothing in the United States Constitution grants the federal government the authority to redefine the institution of marriage.”

The federal judge, Callie V. S. Granade of United States District Court in Mobile, issued a second ruling in favor of same-sex marriage in a separate Alabama case on Tuesday but has stayed both rulings until Feb. 9. And in a three-page order Wednesday, Judge Granade signaled that she expected jurists to carry out her order if the stay is lifted.

Proponents of same-sex marriage contend that most of the state bills are almost certainly unconstitutional. And even in conservative-dominated statehouses, the chances of passage are unclear, given disagreements within the Republican Party on whether same-sex marriage should be a priority issue. Some experts say they could face sharp rebukes from judges who have ruled in favor of same-sex marriage.

“I think they’ll be angry,” said Risa L. Goluboff, a law professor at the University of Virginia who studies American legal history. “I think they’ll see this as outright defiance and treat it that way.”

Professor Goluboff said she expected the bills to be struck down if approved, although she said their authors might enjoy immediate political benefits. “It seems like, as a long-term strategy, this is not a good step,” she said. “But as something short-term to organize people around, it might not be a bad one.”

Still, the bills probably foreshadow the kinds of fights that may continue to rage even if the United States Supreme Court eventually rules that same-sex marriages must be allowed in all 50 states. This month, the Supreme Court justices agreed to hear a case that could resolve whether same-sex marriage, currently allowed in 36 states and the District of Columbia, should be the law of the land.

Although polls have shown growing support for same-sex marriage nationwide, a large number of Americans remain opposed on religious grounds, and in many states, voters have approved constitutional amendments defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Brian S. Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, said Tuesday that these voters’ minds were not changed by recent federal rulings overturning state bans.

“The millions of people who voted that marriage is a union of a man and a woman are not simply going to throw their beliefs away,” he said. “This fight will continue on regardless of which way the Supreme Court rules.”

As they look beyond the Supreme Court ruling, some opponents of same-sex marriage see parallels to the fight over abortion, which did not die down after the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalized the procedure.

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Senator Lee Bright, a South Carolina Republican, is the sponsor of a bill to allow government employees in that state to opt out of issuing marriage licenses on religious grounds.CreditGerry Melendez/The State, via Associated Press

State Senator Lee Bright, a South Carolina Republican who represents Greenville and Spartanburg Counties, is the sponsor of the bill to allow state government employees to opt out of issuing marriage licenses on religious grounds. Mr. Bright said he expected that his bill would pass constitutional muster, citing existing laws that allow health care workers to decline to provide reproductive health services on religious grounds.

“We have similar language for folks that work in health care that don’t want to participate in abortions,” Mr. Bright said Tuesday. “You know, many Christians believe the biblical design, and that is that marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Mr. Bright also noted that 78 percent of South Carolina voters approved a 2006 constitutional amendment limiting marriage to a man and a woman. A federal judge struck down that ban in November.

Sarah Warbelow, the legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, said that the bills, particularly the ones that would punish state employees for following federal law, would not be likely to withstand a legal challenge.

“In many of these states where we’re seeing these bills pop up, they really didn’t believe marriage equality was coming to their state, despite court after court affirming a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry,” she said. For legislators, she added, “there was a little bit of ostrich-with-his-head-in-the-sand kind of action going on.”

The clash of religious principle with the rulings of the federal courts is perhaps most evident in North Carolina, where at least six magistrate judges, who are called upon to perform civil marriages, quit their jobs after a federal judge approved same-sex marriage there in October.

Among them was John Kallam Jr. Mr. Kallam, a Baptist minister, said he had gone to the judge who served as his supervisor to see if there was a way he could opt out of marrying gay couples, but had been unable to work out a solution. On Oct. 31, Mr. Kallam resigned after nearly 12 years on the job. “I felt, and still feel, that that is stepping on my right of religious freedom,” he said.

He compared his situation to that of a Sikh soldier, with whom he served in the United States Army, who was allowed to wear a turban and grow his beard because these were central to his religion. “Does not the federal government allow for different people to have different religious beliefs?” he asked.

Richard Fausset reported from Columbia, and Alan Blinder from Atlanta.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: States Renew Fight to Stop Gay Marriage. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe